Luke Skywalker was Luke Starkiller in the beginning.

Indiana Jones was also Indiana Smith in the beginning.

M.

Interestingly enough I was in the process of picking names for the characters of my unfinished play today simply because I was growing tired of calling them "Father" and "Daughter" in all of my notes. lol

But it is encouraging to hear that other writers mull over finding the perfect name for their characters as well.

Great tips at the end. Especially about not getting caught up on meaning. I often think names have to have mind-blowing significance but now I know I'm just thinking to hard.

Another great post.

I remember an interview with Joss Whedon where he said he was blocked for ages as he struggled to come up with a name for a character - then he finally realised the character didn't have a name.(It was a character called The Operative in the movie Serenity.) He said, once he knew that, the character became much easier to write. It's interesting how having the right name can help the writing process so much; how it can sometimes bring the charcter into clearer focus.

I remember reading an article on a writer, someone who had written a bunch of books. And for him, the whole name thing was area in which to have some fun. So for instance, in one book, all the characters had surnames of the 1957 Brooklyn Dodgers.

Then there's the brilliant Alex Cox movie Repo Man in which a number of the main characters are named after beers: Bud (Budweiser), Miller, Oly (Olympia).

www.behindthename.com -- a fantastic resource on names in tons of languages. They even have a surname section.

Luzid, that is a tremendous resource. Thanks for posting!

Importance of character names? Depends on the type of story you're writing.

For most rom-com's I've written, I TRY to make them sound like names of people you might know.

Now when I wrote "Indians of the Ancient Plains" the names of all of the those characters were very carefully researched and thought out. Meanings behind names DEFINATELY came to play there.

Still, great post, Scott. You've got some very good, solid advice, to share.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Naming characters is such a fun part of the process.